Ideas for Teachers | Important Themes | Cheating and Plagiarism | Specific Classroom Ideas
Given the amount of time students spend online both at home and in school, it is critical that teachers provide guidance on safe Internet practices and strategies to help students talk about this important subject with their parents.
There
is a vital need nationwide for more education on both the dangers associated with the Internet as
well as preventive measures we all can take to keep ourselves and our youth safe online. Teachers
can play a critical role in addressing this need by becoming aware of Internet safety issues, statistics,
strategies and terminology.
When teachers work with students on Internet safety issues, is it critical that they build discussions and activities that clearly demonstrate how easy it is to be tricked while online, particularly into trusting the identity of an individual who is claiming to be someone they aren’t. According to the 2006 study, Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later (PDF), when young people go online:
13% (1 in 7) received unwanted sexual solicitations.
34% communicate with individuals they have never met.
11% establish close personal relationships with individuals they meet online.
Teachers also need to be aware that their students are even more likely to be cyberbullied. The 2007 study of approximately 2,000 middle school students reported by cyberbullying.us found that:
- 17% had been cyberbullied in their lifetime
- 18% admitted to cyberullying others at some point in their lifetime
- 13% reporting being both a victim and a bully
In addition, 43% of the middle school students had experienced at least one of the following in the last 30 days:
- received an email that made them upset (not spam) (18%)
- received an instant message (IM) that made them upset (16%)
- had something posted on MySpace that made them upset (14%)
- had been made fun of in a chat room (10%)
- had something posted on a website that made them upset (10%)
- had something posted online that they didn’t want others to see (9%)
- were afraid to go on the computer (6%)
According to i-SAFE, 32% of high school students and 17% of students in grades 5-8 admit to having said mean or hurtful things on the Internet. And 25% of high school students and 21% of students in grades 5-8 say they know someone who has been cyberbullied.
The Internet allows anyone to target someone else or to become a target themselves. With today’s phone and Web technology, students can now maintain constant contact with friends and others, but it can also expose them to hateful messages and disturbing images. The majority of cyberbullying takes place outside of school, and so falls largely outside of school disciplinary rules. Nonetheless, the fallout can spill over into the classroom when hurt feelings, lack of cooperation, and hostility interfere with students’ schoolwork and interactions.
Students need guidance from adults on how to discuss and handle cyberbullying. Teachers can encourage students to develop empathy and a greater sense of respect for others by having students take on the responsibility of cyber citizenship and design their own guidelines for appropriate behavior. These guidelines can include accountability, refusing to tolerate bullying in any form, reporting bullying, and understanding the consequences of their actions.
Ideas for Teachers
Almost any structured curriculum on Internet safety, whether sequential or not, should:
- map to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS),
- be aware of No Child Left Behind requirements,
- align with the Montana Content Standards for Technology and Library Media/Information Literacy standards,
- comply with your district’s Acceptable Use Policy for technology integration/usage, and
- comply with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Districts that receive E-Rate and/or Title II, Part D: Enhancing Education Through Technology funding, must have an Internet Safety policy that meets CIPA's requirements.
Ideally,
this curriculum and related lessons would involve community and parent outreach components.
NetSmartz.org and CyberSmart! offer free curriculum ideas to help educators incorporate Internet safety education into their schools and curriculum. The following links provide a variety of online and classroom activities for grades K-2, 3-4, 5-6, middle school and high school:
Teachers and staff can work together to incorporate Internet safety initiatives and media literacy into service learning projects and school safety related grant programs. Schools may also want to consider working with their District's technology coordinator to utilize anti-plagiarism software/scanners.
Programs such as i-SAFE offer Internet safety training for teachers and the Montana Safe Schools Center offers Internet safety awareness programs for parents, students and educators.
Important Themes
Students need to understand that, if they (or someone else) upload photos or information to the Internet, that information can never be retrieved or controlled. Remind your students that once a picture is posted on the Internet, it is impossible to control how that image is used by others or to completely delete it. It is essentially there for the foreseeable future.
Teach your students that once something is on the Internet, anyone can access it. Anyone can download it, resend it, print it and even edit or redesign it to look like something it is not. For example, someone may download another teen's photo, create a fictitious profile on a site like MySpace using the name of the person in the photo, and use this profile to spread malicious rumors or threats. Tech savvy individuals can also download a photo and alter it by replacing the body with someone else's body or adding other images to the photo.
Talk with your students about online dangers and what constitutes being a good cybercitizen. Explain cyberbullying, identity theft, the dangers of meeting someone he or she meets online, and the warning signs that an online "friend" may be an Internet predator interested in sexually abusing a child or teenager.
Discuss the benefits, dangers and responsibilities associated with using peer-to-peer networks/file sharing sites. For instance, students need to understand Fair Use and Copyright Law when they use material without permission from the person who created it.
Cheating and Plagiarism*
One of the greatest benefits of technology, as students have discovered, is how it can help with studying. Vast stores of information, descriptive videos, scientific simulations, and more are at their fingertips to help them understand concepts or find facts for reports. Web sites and web-based tools let students publish their writing, artwork, videos and more—and get valuable feedback from others. Students who learn in different ways can find multiple ways to approach nearly any topic, helping them learn in the way that works best for them.
Technology also allows students to store large amounts of data on small, portable tools such as flash drives, wireless devices and cell phones. They can solve math problems using online calculators, instant message (IM) a friend for information, conduct a Web search with their cell phone, or download a podcast of their teacher’s lecture to their iPod.
On the flip side, students can download essays from online paper mills or find free analyses of novels, plays and poems on sites such as CliffsNotes, AntiStudy and Free Book Notes.com. The wide availability and thoroughness of these types of sites poses a challenge for educators who expect students to do their own work. Instead of forbidding students from using these sites (which is often ineffectual), teachers can instead consider letting the technology work with them. For example, one Montana teacher allows his students to use their cell phones during test time. Akin to the "lifeline" on TV game shows such as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," students can "phone a friend" within a five-minute window for help in answering a test question.
To reduce cheating and plagiarism, consider the following ideas:
- Speak with your students about the proper, legitimate and responsible use of technology for study.
- Remind students of your school’s policy on cheating and plagiarism, and make penalties clear.
- Discuss the benefits of citing sources, and analyze with them the quality of essays from paper mills.
- Let your students know that you have tools — such as Plagiairism.org and Glatt Plagiariasm Services — to detect cheating and plagiarism. Importantly, these tools are not foolproof; some savvy students will find ways to avoid detection.
- Facilitate a discussion among your students to help them generate their own Internet guidelines. Document these guidelines, post them in the classroom, and revisit them often. Students will take on much greater responsibility for their actions if they have a vested role in defining that responsibility.
*This section based on the article Safety Net: Help your students avoid getting caught up in bullying, cheating, or privacy problems, authored by Russell Grimes and Sindie Spencer Kennedy of the Montana Safe Schools Center, in Cable in the Classroom, July/August 2008.
Specific Classroom Ideas
1. Let
your students teach you what they know about computers. This will open up communication and empower
the students.
2. Visit
your students' favorite sites with them.
3. Look
at multiple websites with your students and then discuss how to tell if a site is secure and/or if
it would be easy for people to create fake identities on a site.
4. Have
students Google themselves and share with you what they find.
5. Partner
your students with the school newspaper or an English class project to write a series of articles
about Internet safety.
6. Have
your students talk about their online experiences in a structured, supportive group setting, possibly
facilitated by your school counselor.
7. Discuss Netiquette (proper
online behavior) with students and guide them to develop empathy and a greater sense of respect for
others by taking on the responsibility of cyber citizenship. Allow students to design their own guidelines
for appropriate online behavior. Post these guidelines in the classroom and revisit them often.
8.Work
with your students to create clear, simple and easy-to-read Internet safety rules, post them near
computers and revisit them often. Consider developing safety pledges that you and your students agree
on, will commit to and are willing to sign. To get started, see the Netsmartz
Safety Pledges.
9. Some
districts require students and parents to sign an Acceptable Use Policy before students are allowed
to use school computers or the Internet. Some schools view it as requiring students to get their "Internet
driver’s license."
10. Create
a list of key Internet-related buzzwords and safety tips. Then have students
create informational posters or tip sheets to be shared with parent groups and senior citizen organizations.
See the Glossary for ideas.
11. Have
your elementary students write Internet safety related letters to their parents as a way of helping
open discussion at home on this topic.
12. Have
a discussion with your elementary students about the similarities and differences between safety rules
in the real world and in the cyber world.
13. Have
students create sample screen names and discuss the implications of those names.
14. Partner
with your school resource officer to help facilitate discussions on Internet safety.